Take the Money and Run
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| Take the Money and Run | |
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 original film poster |
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| Directed by | Woody Allen |
| Produced by | Charles Joffe |
| Written by | Woody Allen Mickey Rose |
| Starring | Woody Allen Janet Margolin Louise Lasser Marcel Hillaire Jackson Beck Lonny Chapman James Anderson |
| Music by | Marvin Hamlisch |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) | August 18, 1969 (USA) |
| Running time | 85 min. |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
Take the Money and Run is a 1969 comedy film co-written by, directed by, and starring Woody Allen. It is a mockumentary, chronicling the life of Virgil Starkwell, a bungling petty thief (his name suggests that of Charles Starkweather, a notorious spree killer of the 1950s). His entry into a life of crime at a young age, his crime spree, his first prison term and eventual escape, the birth and growth of his family, as well as his eventual capture at the hands of the FBI are some of the notable events depicted. Allen initially filmed a downbeat ending in which he was shot to death, courtesy of special effects from A.D. Flowers. Allen's editor, Ralph Rosenblum (whose first work with Allen this was), convinced him to go for a lighter ending.
This film was the first to be directed solely by Allen. (He had wanted Jerry Lewis to direct originally; when that didn't work out, Allen got the notion to direct it himself). Woody Allen's decision to become his own director was partially spurred on by the chaotic and uncontrolled filming of Casino Royale, in which he had appeared two years previously. This film marked the first time Woody Allen would perform the triple duties of writing, directing and acting in a film. The hysterical and almost slapstick style is similar to that of Allen's next several films, including Sleeper and Bananas.
Allen discussed the concept of filming a mockumentary in an interview with Richard Schickel. "Take the Money and Run was a pseudo-documentary. The idea of doing a documentary, which I later finally perfected when I did Zelig was with me from the first day I started movies. I thought that was an ideal vehicle for doing comedy, because the documentary format was very serious, so you were immediately operating in an area where any little thing you did upset the seriousness and was thereby funny. And you could tell your story laugh by laugh by laugh... The object of the movie was for every inch of it to be a laugh."
The film was shot on location in San Francisco. One scene is set in Ernie's restaurant, whose striking red interior was immortalized in Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958). It was also filmed at San Quentin State Prison. One hundred San Quentin prisoners were paid a small fee to work on the film during the prison sequences. The regular cast and crew were stamped each day with a special ink that glowed under ultra-violet light so the guards could tell who was allowed to leave the prison grounds at the end of the day. Micil Murphy was one of the actors in the film, having returned to San Quentin for the role. He had become an actor after being paroled from that same prison three years earlier, in 1966, where he served five and a half years for armed robbery.
